A Parody on “A Psalm of Life” in  General   

Life is real, life is earnest,
And the shell is not its pen –
“Egg thou art, and egg remainest”
Was not spoken of the hen.

Art is long and Time is fleeting,
Be our bills then sharpened well,
And not like muffled drums be beating
On the inside of the shell.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the great barnyard of life,
Be not like those lazy cattle!
Be a rooster in the strife!

Lives of roosters all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
And when roasted, leave behind us,
Hen tracks on the sands of time.

Hen tracks that perhaps another
Chicken drooping in the rain,
Some forlorn and henpecked brother,
When he sees, shall crow again.

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

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Other poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes:

• A Familiar Letter
• A Farewell to Agassiz
• A Parody on “A Psalm of Life”
• Bill and Joe
• Cacoethes Scribendi
• Contentment
• Daily Trials by a Sensitive Man
• Dorothy Q.
• For the Moore Centennial Celebration
• Martha
• My Aviary
• Old Ironsides
• Poem (Halleck monument dedication)
• Sun and Shadow
• The Boys
• The Chambered Nautilus
• The Dorchester Giant
• The Flaâneur
• The Flower of Liberty
• The Height of the Ridiculous
• The Iron Gate
• The Last Leaf
• The Living Temple
• The Old Man Dreams
• The Opening of the Piano
• The Organ-Blower
• The September Gale
• The Silent Melody
• The Two Streams
• The Voiceless
• Under the Violets
• Union and Liberty
• Æstivation